Australian Targets

Saturday, July 28, 2012

I attended the Climate Commission public forum in Melbourne last Tuesday night with my daughter. I felt that it was important that she came along to see the charts on the screen, to hear from the Climate Commissioners and climate scientists directly, and perhaps question them about her future. Because global warming will have an increasing impact on the climate of the future, and the life of the kids of today, and eventually their children and future generations.

Yesterday the Federal Minister for Resources and Energy, Martin Ferguson, announced withdrawal of $100 million funding for the HRL proposed coal gasification 600MW power station in the La Trobe Valley.

Environment Victoria and other Environment groups like Quit Coal, Greenpeace, Climate Action Moreland, who have been fighting the proposed power station, have claimed the withdrawal of federal funding as a major win in their campaign to stop new coal fired power stations being built. The $100 million funding was promised by the Howard Government if certain project milestones were met, which the company has not been able to fulfill.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Surface melt on the Greenland ice sheet reached up to 97% of the ice sheet area by July 12, an unprecedented level of melting, according to readings gathered and cross-referenced from three different satellites by several scientists.

Satellite measurements showed that about 40 percent of the ice sheet had undergone thawing at or near the surface on July 8, but over the subsequent 4 days the melting had dramatically accelerated to cover an estimated 97 percent of the ice sheet surface by July 12. This was the largest area seen thawing ever measured on the Greenland ice sheet by satellite measurements.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

A new video by the Climate Commission features Moreland Council taking action on energy consumption and climate change resulting in reduced carbon emissions and substantial dollar savings for ratepayers.

In the video produced by the Climate Commission Stuart Nesbitt, the Climate Change Technical officer with Moreland council, explains in particular how putting in place energy efficiencies and optimisation has resulted in a better managed aquatic centre that reduces it's energy consumption and carbon footprint while saving taxpayers money.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Delta Electricity this afternoon announced the closure of the 45 year old Munmorah coal fired power station at least partly due to the introduction of the carbon tax. The power station is located on the shores of Lake Munmorah on the central coast of NSW between Sydney and Newcastle.

Reasons for the closure being cited by Delta Energy include the reduction in energy demand in NSW resulting in an excess in electricity supply, the aging nature of the infrastructure and the high cost of maintenance, and that "the carbon tax further erodes its viability."

Well this is a nice pickle! It seems that sea level rise won't stop even if we aggressively mitigate global warming and keep global average atmospheric temperatures beneath 2 degrees celsius. The reason, it seems, is there is enormous inertia in the world's oceans and we are now warming the deeper ocean which will continue for hundreds of years.

Simple physics really. You heat a liquid and it expands. This thermal expansion is responsible for about a third of the currently observed rate of sea level rise. And it will continue for several hundred years as deeper cooler layers of the ocean take up the heat from the upper layers. Even if we take aggressive action to reduce carbon emissions, and go carbon negative, such action may only slow the rate of sea level rise as the deeper ocean continues to expand.

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About Me

Time to leap out of the slowly boiling pot of earth's warming climate
into action on climate mitigation and adaption.
I don't want my children to ask why I didn't act after reading the
scientific reports of climate risks. I write on the
effects of human induced climate change, sea level rise, ocean
acidification, biodiversity loss, environmental and social impacts of
global warming, and climate protests from a Melbourne Citizen
Journalist.

A member of environmental NGOs and community groups for 30 years in Australia, currently living in Melbourne. A Citizen journalist for the Indymedia network in Australia and worldwide. I am an editor and contributor with Australia Indymedia and the global features collective. Since 2013 I have contributed many stories to Margot Kingston's citizen journalism website: nofibs.com.au. (See my article archive) I also post photoessays to Flickr and videos to Youtube and edit wikipedia as user Tirin. My website is takver.com where I can be contacted through the feedback form, the most reliable way to contact me. I can also be contacted through facebook and on twitter as @takvera.